PFC Kent Alan Leonard USMC

Kent Alan Leonard was born June 22, 1948 in Little Rock AR to Clarence and Nancy Leonard.  His father was enrolled at the University of Arkansas at the time.  In 1950 the family moved to Las Cruces where his father began his career as a physicist at the USDA Cotton Gin.  Kent graduated from Las Cruces HS in 1965 and enrolled at NMSU the following fall. He withdrew after one semester.  In the late spring of 1966 he joined the US Marines and by the next spring was in country assigned to “B” Company, 1st Battalion, 9th Marines. The 9th Marines earned the name "The Walking Dead" for its high casualty rate. During it’s time in Vietnam the battalion endured the longest sustained combat and suffered the highest killed in action rate in Marine Corps history.  On 6 February 1967 the 1st Battalion was assigned to Khe Sanh Combat Base.  Khe Sanh was located in I Corps, just below the DMZ astride the D’ai Lao gap that had for centuries been a route for invasion from Laos into Vietnam.  In 1967 it served as a critical US base for long range patrols into Laos.  As such the North Vietnamese saw it as a check against their strategic movement of supplies along the Ho Chi Minh trail.